Official Sony S11/S12/S13 (2010) Owners Thread

Thank you for the update .. I hope it turns out to be true

 

Does anyone know when the second part of the S-serie will be launched?

 

july or later

 

nah, just wanted to know how much real-world battery life it provides.

the thing is, sony seems very willing to sell their products, but obtaining accessories is quite the opposite - most retailers can't get their hands on them

anyways, all irrelevant now, as the new found life in the standard battery suits my needs very nicely indeed

 

I'm also quite happy with the battery life - I even have it charged up to 50% only to prolong it's life as in most cases this pretty much corresponds to my needs and if I know I'll need more - I let it charge more in advance.

 

Actually, the more times you charge it, the worse it gets. Setting it to 50% for the battery saver actually just limits the capcity to 50% (still charges to 100%). At least this is how I think it works. From my past experience with batteries, the more times you charge it, not how much capacity you use determines its life before it hits 50% of actual capcity. Anyways, it shouldn't really matter, in the 1.5~2.5 years of usage (depending on load, charge cycles), most people would opt for a new laptop or battery by then.

Battery life is good, but could be better. I get around 4~4.5 hours depending on settings. I found that battery discharge stops at around 88%~90% even after leaving the battery out for a week.

The case is holding up fine, not one scratch after 1~2 months of heavy school usage.

 

Most manufacturers advise limiting charging capacity up to 50 or 80% to prolong batterly life. But of course what matters more are the charging cycles. It is just better for the battery to be kept at 80% or less then at 100%. The other positive thing about keeping it charged up to 50% is that it is also advised to store it separately when not going to need it for days or weeks and to do so it should also be charged to about 50%... so whenever I think I'm not going to need it at all for some time - I just take it out directly.

Taking care of your battery is really worth it - I took care of the one for my last laptop and 4 years later - it had warn out with I think 11%.... so just 11% loss in 4 years! Gave it to a friend to use after the laptop broke down and he didn't believe me it is the original one

Btw. I couldn't determine mine discharging by itself when out at all... or maybe 1% or less for 3-4 days or so... which is practically nothing.

 

One other "bug" I found on the S recently:

Whenever the brightness is set to the absolute MIN (Dark room), the backlight is unstable!!! I noticed it while looking at a white background (web page) - the right part of the screen was unstable - the brightness was playing. One can notice it only if looking carefully and on a white (hell) background but it is definitely a fact. Thought it could be the light sensor - tried disabling it but no difference - whenever the brightness is at lowest - the brightness starts playing / is unstable! I think it is also true on the next brightness level but hardly noticable...

 

Has anyone managed to enable the GPS chip in the Gobi card yet?

I had a play around with SmartWi and the drivers last night, but couldnt seem to make it appear (I got an error response from certain AT commands). It's exactly the same hardware as is in the Z though so surely we should be able to do something....

 

I have the SR-190 when it first came out with the built in graphics (not the ATI card). I see on newegg a Sony bluray burner for laptops Newegg.com - SONY Black 6X BD-R 2X BD-RE 8X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 6X BD-ROM 4.5 Mbyte Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner Model BD-5730S-01 - Blu-Ray Burners. Will this burner work in the sr190? In particular is this graphics chipset and screen capable of playing BR discs? I don't care if it's really HD in resolution but just want to know if a BR disc will play on it if I update the original dvd drive?

 

Has anyone a recommendation for a cheap travel power supply? should be smaller then the original one without a protective-earth connection. Best would be if its available for germany

Nik

 

ebay and you're still going to have the size of the original as i needs the regulators still in the housing

 

dnaxx, why would a DVI-HDMI adapter allow you to run a higher res monitor than straight HDMI would?

 

Guys,

I keep on having audio/video distortion issues!! Whenever watching a movie, randomly (sometimes once or twice a movie, sometimes up to 10 or 15 times) the picture and sound freeze and "buzzz" for up to a second. The duration of the "buzz" is different - sometime barely noticable, sometimes up to ~ 1 second!! It is really bothering me already! You can't really enjoy a movie that way!

I have the latest BIOS update installed, I use VLC Player but the same behaviour is observed with WMP. I tried installing different NVIDIA drivers (the original Sony ones and those from "laptopvideo2go" - no difference!

Any advise??? It really bothers me!

 

As I had mentioned before, it's the DPC latency issue. Almost all Nvidia drivers produce this noise when they downclock only in Windows 7. I get it in my FZ too. But the video shouldn't freeze. I got used to this sound now.
Only solution is to not open/close other programs, when watching a movie. Also disabling Nvidia Powermizer should prevent downclocking, but at the expense of more power usage and heat.
You can try the Nvidia WHQL driver here http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...ebook-drivers-released-ms-update-catalog.html

 

Hey guys, without having to go through all 127 of this thread, could someone please outline both the BEST and WORST things about the Sony S Series laptop?

Thanks!!

 

Maybe it is a different issue? I have an audio AND video freeze/ buzz at the same time. The picture freezes for less then a second and I hear a "bzzzz" sound at the same time. And of course I open/close no programs while watching a movie.... :-/

 

done already - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/475297-my-two-months-vaio-s-review-3.html

 

Do you get the buzz when playing audio only? It you get, then it's DPC latency.
There are tools to test it too. Googling should help you.

 

I think so - it does seem to happen but rarely - for example only when I am not using the PC

P.s. just downloaded and ran DPC Latence Checker:

It says that some device drivers behave bad...

So is there no solution? Why is this happening and where is actually the bug? Drivers or hardware??

And why is nobody else complaining about it here or elsewhere.....?

 

Do you update the BIOS to the lastest version?

 

Yes, I did.

 

Thanks ...

 

It's a bug with Nvidia video driver, not hardware.
Actually I wasn't aware of this issue, until I stumbled upon a thread here. Nobody is complaining of this, because they don't even know that this is happening.
There is a solution. Disable Nvidia powermizer (which does the downclocking). You can use a tool like NvGpupro to disable the powermizer only under AC. See if gets rid of the audio distortion.

 

Ok coolguy,

I disabled powermizer under AC, will see whether this solves the problems next time I watch.

Strangely the problem doesn't seem to be solved even in the new drivers - I tried them but no difference. :-/

 

Hi guys,
Just wondering if anyone has worked out how to control the brightness of the backlit keyboard? I went through as many pages i could but couldnt find anything. Also does anyone know if I can add a WWAN card onto my notebook?
I've got VPCS117GGB which is the australian model
Thanks.

 

I don't think it is possible to manually control the brightness of the keyboard (and wonder who and what for would ever need that...).

About the WWAN - has already been discussed - there is nothing impossible but you need to open your notebook (both the main part and the screen) which would lead to warranty issues (void).

I would consider it "impossible" just because it is way too hard and risky - you can buy a WWAN stick for like 50 euros or so.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Gracy123,
I'm coming from a macbook background and it was possible in it and for me quite handy as well, especially when watching vidoes in the dark.
as for WWAN is concerned, I'm not too fussed about it but as i already got a USB dongle, just thought if it is possible it would be handy.

another issue i'm having is that the colours are a bit washed off, i downloaded your colour profile but it doesnt seem to make any difference.

oh one more thing, is it just my notebook or is it normal that youre barely able to hear something when the system volume is at 30%? in other words compared to 2 other notebooks i've had the sound from this notebook is tinny.

 

Yes, the colors are a bit washed out - I use the Nvidia Control Panel to set the "Digital Vibrance" to 17%. I find this setting optimal.

The sound of S isn't it's best feature, but again - it is not a multimedia notebook. I compared mine to other business series and I should say it is at least average. Not disappointed at all, having in mind it is not a multimedia one.

 

Another question about Nvidia drivers:

I don't think it was like that at first but now whenever I use any laptopvideo2go drivers, VAIO control center is unable to automatically change the brighntess / dimm the screen! The option is enabled but it just doesn't work - only manually.

If I use the Sony drivers, auto-dimming works perfectly.

I noticed an option in Nv GPU Pro - "Enable Brightness Control". Haven't tried it yet.

Does anyone have an ideia why this is not working? Have you experienced it too (as I said - only with the laptopvideo2go drivers).

 

Same issue for me.
With the laptopvideo2go driver the automatic brightness wont work
im back on the sony one now...

 

Yep, me too.

Do you also get those Buzzez when watching a movie?

Unfortunately disabling powermizer didn't make a difference. Small buzzez still occure
DPC Latency graph doesn't look good at all, most of the time in the red zone....

 

I dont see this on my machine.

Check out resplendence's post on this thread to analyze the problem:

KVR: DPC Latency - where do I go from here?

And also Peter Wieland's blog here:

Pointless Blathering : Measuring DPC time

good luck!

 

I read earlier in the thread about a the docking station for the S Series.

Anyone know if it's available in the U.S. ?

 

Interesting links, thanks.

Here is how my typical DPC graph. looks like:





No difference if running on battery or not.

 

I don't own a S series Vaio. So I can't help you in this regard. Did the auto backlight control work with the MS update 197.45 driver?

 

Intel wifi cards also seem to cause DPC spikes (found in Google). Turn OFF the wifi card and see if you get any latency spike.

 

Guys,

here is what my research showed:

WITH original NVIDIA driver (any) and Powermizer by default:






NVIDIA uninstalled - standart VGA driver:




And here with NVIDIA 197.45 and Powermizer disabled:





Red lines still occure every now and then but the difference is pretty obvious I think......

Hope NVIDIA will find a solution. This is unacceptable!

 

Well heres mine, taken while playing a 1080p 10gb movie.....



With all the stock Sony drivers, so I think you might be barking up the wrong tree here.

Kernel dev guidelines suggest a maximum of 100 microseconds in a DPC, so your graph sitting at 1000 most of the time still doesnt look great. I would use the xperf guide if I were you and see exactly which drivers are placing code into DPCs, and how much time those DPCs are taking to execute.

 

blinder, please observe your graph when not watching a movie!! For some reason mine looks similar to yours sometimes (right now) when watching a movie, but when stopped it goes to the red zone all the time!

I still get stutters though, no matter that the graph isn't showing red at this moment. Don't you guys have stutters??? Not at all???

 

I get a click noise sometimes, and this is not that annoying like you are talking about.

 

mine is no click noise but a "buzzz" noise... stuttering - both audio and video....

 

What video player are you you using? Do you have any codec pack installed?

 

VLC player, but if I am not mistaken - there is no difference by WMP either.

I have the latest K-Lite codec pack... had another a bit older K-Lite one before - the new one didn't make a difference.

 

Uninstall the codec pack and see if you get any stuttering. I don't have any codec pack installed. WMP 12 plays all common video codecs, except MKV, out of the box. You only need Haali media splitter to play MKV's.

You can also try shark007 codec pack, which doesn't interfere with built in WMP codecs.

I wouldn't recommend installing a codec pack. Use VLC to play other video formats, which aren't supported in WMP.

 

It's the same when idle, I wasnt sure if you were measuring whilst playing a movie or not you see - thats why I played one.

No - no stutters, no freezes.

I really would take the time to do the xperf stuff Gracy, I know it's a bit of a pain to go through it - but at least it will tell you the driver thats causing your problems. I'm going to look at the xperf process and see if I can automate or script some of it.

 

Took receipt of my Vaio S with 6GB Ram, 128GB SSD yesterday.

So far so good. Need to get rid of the shiny screen though...

For anybody interested it is a Toshiba SSD, here are crystal disk results although I was doing some browsing and messing about throughout this test it is probably still a good indication:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 200.684 MB/s
Sequential Write : 132.933 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 177.548 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 118.740 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 13.023 MB/s [ 3179.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 11.253 MB/s [ 2747.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 15.509 MB/s [ 3786.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 13.087 MB/s [ 3195.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 20.8% (23.5/113.0 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/05/20 10:42:48
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

Gus

 

my display brightness is not working!!! it does not auto adjust now what might b the cause of it?

 

is the display dim or bright?

can you go to power settings and adjust it yourself?

 

If you used any non-Sony NVIDIA drivers - this is the effect! Auto dimming is not working with any other (not official Sony) NVIDIA drivers.